Hello Monday

Hi friends I hope you all had an amazing weekend. I’m back today with Holly and Sarah for Hello Monday sharing a bit about what I got up to over the weekend. Friday Night Friday evenings are my favourite. They are such a sweet reward for a long week. But before I got down to enjoying my favourite night of the week. I got cracking on a bit of housework so that I didn’t have to think about it over the weekend. Then I finished my Friday favourites post and plonked myself on the sofa to watch some TV…. ah bliss! I watched a bit of Virgin River then I flicked through a few channels and streaming services. I’m still working through my Cozy Solo Movie Nights list and so far I have watched five out of ten of the movies The rest will have to wait because I don’t have them on any of the streaming services we subscribe to. Steve got home from work pretty late and after he showered and changed he joined me on the sofa for some very late TV viewing. I remembered that Sarah from Toronto Sam had recommended ‘Beckham’ which is on Netflix so we started watching it. We enjoyed the first episode so much that we ended up watching another and if you haven’t watched it then you definitely should. Not just for the eye candy but also because his life is so interesting. David Beckham comes across as a very genuine and down-to-earth guy and Victoria is equally likeable. Even though he is super famous and always locks eyes with me from his cologne poster when I am waiting at the checkout line in Chemist Warehouse, Hurstville….swoon. I didn’t know any details about his exceptional soccer skills and journey to fame. The documentary provided a fascinating insight into his life and it was a very interesting watch indeed! Saturday I went with Steve and Sam to vote in the referendum and then Steve dropped me off at the hair salon. It has been ages since I had visited the salon for a trim. The length really bothered me on Friday afternoon and I was lucky to get an appointment for Saturday as that is their busiest day. Does that happen to you where you feel fine about your hair and then as soon as it starts to bother you, you want it cut that very minute? Haha happens to me all the time. This time I let the hairdresser trim my fringe, normally I do it myself. I don’t trust anyone to trim my fringe because I think I must have childhood fringe trauma. When I was a kid my dear mum used to cut my fringe herself. But she used to keep on cutting until it was straight. This meant that I always ended up with a super short fringe. I was a chubby kid with a short fringe and I looked no bueno! After my haircut, it was time for my appointment to see the optometrist for an eye check. I never used to get anxious about eye checks but now they give me anxiety. I guess it’s because I know that my vision has changed. My family also has a history of glaucoma and macular degeneration…..shudder!! But so far so good and after my check the optometrist said that I don’t have signs of either of those…..yet. When she ended with a yet I broke out in a cold sweat! I have always needed glasses for distance and now I need reading glasses as well. So I picked a couple of pairs of frames that looked decent on me. A pair of sunglasses for distance and regular frames for reading glasses. There were so many frames to choose from! I wandered around the shops for a bit and then walked home and had a late lunch. Ham, cheese and salad roll with mayo. Yum! Sunday I didn’t get up to much on Sunday apart from going to church. When I got home we finished watching the last two episodes of ‘Beckham’. Lots of cuddles with this cutie in the evening. I just spent most of the afternoon and evening relaxing on the sofa. I even went to bed early because I was so tired from staying up so late. Sushi and Mochi Update Well, these two can’t even tolerate looking at each other and it doesn’t look like they are on the road to friendship. I have been reassured that they will eventually come around and get used to each other. I sure do hope so because it’s hard work keeping them apart. At the moment Mochi the kitten is the feisty one! She may be small but she’s scary when she hisses at poor Sushi. And that’s about all that I got up to over the weekend. How was yours? I hope it was a good one. 😊                  

Hey there friends! Welcome to the Hello Monday link-up with Holly and Sarah. I hope you all had an amazing weekend (seriously, why do weekends pass in the blink of an eye?). Can you believe it’s already the first week of October? Time just keeps zipping by! Thanks so much for hanging out with me as I chat about my weekend. Let’s get into it! Saturday My husband made an omelette for brunch and we had half each. I love his omelettes! He uses anything that is in the fridge that looks omelette-worthy, adds a bit of cheese and voilà! This time he added ham and leftover salad ingredients from Friday night’s dinner, such as tomato, red onion, baby spinach and avocado. Yum! Blue Bloods-Season 9 Finale Before my husband went to work we watched an episode of Blue Bloods and (spoiler alert!!) it was the episode where Eddie and Jamie get married. Aww it was such a great episode and I got teary watching those two favourite characters finally say I do. Except that we didn’t get to see them say I do. All we got to see was the bride enter the church and then it ended. I was all like….noooooo!!! I wanted to see the whole ceremony AND the reception! So I had to do what I usually do when I don’t get an ending that I’m happy with. I make up my own in my head, ha! Do you do that? Painting Steve went to work and I got busy painting the sanded back doorways and skirting boards. I can’t say that I was feeling overly motivated to paint. But while I was in the garage/office looking for the paint brushes etc. I hit the jackpot by finding a bag of Chupa Chups from last year’s Halloween. I figured a sugar hit would help! Having Virgin River playing on the iPad also kept me semi-entertained, and I managed to paint two coats of undercoat. Here is the before and after. You can still see some of the wood through the undercoat, where I got carried away with the electric sander! But I think that when I apply two coats of water-based enamel paint. Then it should cover it up (I hope). Our hallway is small which makes the painting process more manageable and bearable. Anyway, I’m aiming to get the final coats on either tonight or tomorrow and I can’t wait to see the results. Sanding and undercoating aren’t much fun! Sunday Swim Club Sunday we were back for the new swim club season. While my husband has been swimming with Oatley Amateur Swimming Club for years, I only joined as a social member last year. I really enjoy going along to their social events but I don’t compete because I don’t know how to swim very well. Plus I don’t think I have a single competitive bone in my body when it comes to sport. But I do eat like a champ and Oatley Swimming Club always puts on a delicious monthly BBQ. Another reason why I love going along to the swim club is because they swim in the river and not a pool. When I’m there it’s so relaxing and it feels like a mini getaway even though we are only about 15 minutes away from home. Pink gin and soda by the river…yes, please! Chores Late Sunday afternoon I got my online grocery order and I put that all away. I also sliced up the chicken breasts I ordered, pounded them and froze them ready for when I make chicken schnitzels. A couple of times I was lazy and bought the sliced chicken breasts. But at $22 a kilo compared to $9.50 a kilo when I slice the breasts myself. I think it’s worth the effort! It was such a hot Sunday! The temps got as high as 37ºC so when I hung out my washing at around 4 pm, it dried super fast. Then thanks to daylight saving it was still sunny at 6.30 pm when I went to get the washing off the line all crispy and dry. Football Grand Final We were still full from our BBQ lunch so we had a small bowl of vegetable pasta while we watched the NRL grand final. Well, I didn’t really watch, instead I played ‘Words With Friends’. But I oohed and ahhed when I was supposed to while my husband yelled and whooped after every goal…oops, I mean a try. In NRL football a goal is called a try. Well, that’s it for the weekend friends! It was a fantastic hot and sunny weekend, but as always, it went by way too fast! How about you? What did you get up to? I look forward to being back here on Wednesday. Have a great day!      

Hi there friends, welcome back to Hello Monday hosted by Holly and Sarah! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. I am excited to be back today to recap my weekend, which turned out to be a fun start to the spring school holidays! Saturday-A Day in the City What better way to start the holidays than meeting up with my wonderful friend for a day out in the city? We caught the train together. We have this routine where she gets on the train first from her suburb as she lives further away. She usually updates me by text about where she’s at which is either at the station or on the train. I usually respond with “I’m running” because that’s me, usually running to make it to the train! Then I jump on the same train when it arrives at my station and she is always in the first carriage and so that makes it easy to find her. A Delicious Long Lunch We started our day with lunch at a rooftop bar and restaurant called Babylon and we loved it the minute we walked in. The restaurant and bar were decorated with beautiful hanging plants and it had a fantastic relaxed atmosphere even though the bar area was buzzing and noisy with people having a great time. They were there early for the brunch and bottomless mimosas. Hmmm, I’m tempted to try that next time we go! The menu offered Mediterranean food and it was absolutely delicious. Everything tasted so unique, amazing and authentic. I was almost oohing and aaahing after every bite, it was that good! We ordered the tiger prawn skewers, falafel, fried potatoes and fattoush and shared all the dishes. We finished with a scoop of ice cream each. My friend ordered the mandarin sorbet and I ordered the Turkish coffee ice cream which came with ground coffee beans. I don’t think that I have ever tasted ice cream this good before. The combination of the sweet ice cream with a subtle taste of coffee and the slightly bitter ground coffee beans made every creamy, crunchy bite an amazing taste sensation. I can’t wait to go back again! Time To Shop After a long lunch, we hit some shops. I had a dress that I wanted to return at David Jones so we went there first. Last week I ordered a dress online at 1 o’clock in the morning. I’ve learnt my lesson, I should never do any online shopping in the early hours of the morning! The dress fitted me fine but it didn’t suit me at all so back to the store it went. We looked around the clothes sections where everything was discounted by 40-50%. We didn’t find anything we liked but we did spot some Christmas ornaments and we were very excited because it’s never too early for Christmas decor! Coffee break time. Then we went to Zara which was packed full of shoppers. We even had to wait for a good 15 or so minutes to get into the fitting room because the queue was so long! I tried on a pair of cream-coloured pants, a black jacket and a stripy top(here I am trying on the stripy top). I hadn’t planned on buying anything but I ended up buying all three…ooops! Our last stop was T2 where they sell every variety of tea imaginable as well as tea cups, saucers and tea pots. It’s a world of tea! I bought the apple crumble-flavoured fruit tea which I discovered from a sample pack my younger son’s girlfriend gave me for my birthday in February. It tastes and smells so delicious, I’ve had it hot as well as cold with a nice splash of honey and it’s the best! It was such a fun Saturday! Sunday I went to church and then to my aunt’s house to check on things while she is away in Europe. When I got home I had a coffee on the verandah and soaked up the sun. It felt so good to sit there and I was happy to see that the geraniums (I think that’s what they are) are starting to bloom. It’s amazing what water can do to plants! I have been really good about watering my indoor plants every Friday. But I had been neglecting the few poor plants on the verandah until I realized that they were looking sad and thirsty. In the afternoon I lay down and fell asleep for two hours! I can’t remember the last time that I had a nap during the day. Being on school holidays clearly makes me feel very relaxed and I think that my body is catching up on some much-needed rest. An Evening of Jazz In the evening Steve and I had dinner at our local pub and then went to see James Morrison the amazing Australian jazz musician. He’s played with legends such as Ray Charles, BB King, and Whitney Houston to name a few. During the show they played some beautiful music from movies such as Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Love is a Many Splendored Thing. I grew up watching these classic movies with my mum. So it was so hard for me not to get emotional and I started getting teary remembering all those Saturday afternoons when my mum and I would watch movies together. But I managed to swallow the lump in my throat and compose myself enough to enjoy the fantastic show. There is something so special about live music and the James Morrison quartet played with so much passion and skill. It was a great start to the spring school holidays and I really enjoyed my weekend. It was the best feeling knowing that I could enjoy such a late Sunday night and then sleep in today. I have some more fun things planned for this week. But I also want to get onto some chores that I deliberately left for the school holidays. One of these

Hi, there friends it’s great to be back for ‘Hello Monday’ with Holly and Sarah. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend, they go by way too fast, don’t they? Today I’m recapping our very warm and sunny spring weekend. Thanks so much for dropping by! Saturday We had the best warm and sunny spring weather this weekend and the temps hit around 32ºC. I was in heaven but my husband and son were all ‘Oh no!’. They don’t like the heat at all and the minute the temp gets over 25ºc they get hot and uncomfortable and want to turn on the air conditioning- brrrrrr. I sat out on the verandah for a bit to soak up the sun and admired the pretty lavender bush. This bush grows so wild! I like to cut some to put it in a vase because it makes the house smell nice. But it’s not always easy as it’s usually surrounded by buzzing bees collecting the pollen. I don’t like to compete with the bees for lavender! I had no plans on Saturday so I just hung around at home doing not much at all and it was fun! Watching Instagram reels took up most of my Saturday morning. I tell you, once I start watching reels, I totally lose track of time. Some of them are so funny, it makes it hard to stop. My stomach felt so much better after feeling off for most of last week. But I was not taking any risks so I mainly ate vegemite on toast. I also had some plain pasta and added a bit of parmesan cheese to jazz things up a bit. Plain diets are not much fun! I watched an episode of Blue Bloods with my husband before he went to work in the afternoon. When he left I started putting together a short iMovie for the preschool kids to watch this week. Over the year I have been filming our Wednesday to Friday class as they have been busy playing. The classroom teacher and I thought the kids would get a real kick out of watching themselves on film. I added the song “It’s Always A Good Time” by Owl City and Carly Rae Jepsen, I think it turned out pretty well and I’m excited to show it to the kids. Later on, it was time to get rid of those annoying grey roots. I really like using Garnier Olia in light brown because it leaves my hair soft and shiny, at least for a few days. Then it’s usually back to me applying all sorts of products to cope with the constant frizz! Pork and beef meatballs for dinner. Then it was time to look for some spring outfit inspiration on Pinterest. Later on, I watched another episode of “Who is Erin Carter?” I love all the action and mystery. I have two episodes to go and I can’t wait to see how it ends. Have you seen it? Sunday I went to church and then I dropped in to see my aunt on the way home. She needed to give me some keys to her house because she’s going on a holiday around Europe. She put her spare keys on this R2D2 key ring. It makes the R2D2 sound when you press the button on the back. I may not want to return this cute key ring when she comes home!! I’ll be dropping in to water the plants and collect the mail. My cousins (her kids) are also in Europe holidaying so she’ll be catching up with them for a bit. I’m sure they are all having an amazing time but I miss them. Our next cousin connect in October when we are all back together is going to be so fun! Sunday Evening We had plans to meet up with some friends in the city for dinner. We went to a restaurant in the Sofitel Hotel called Atelier by Sofitel. It is a bit fancy, so it was a great reason to dress up. I did the whole trying on different outfits routine and picked between black, black or black. Yikes! So much of my wardrobe is black! Normally I wear pants but this time I went with a skirt and an off-the-shoulder top. For dinner, we shared a huge rib-eye steak with sides. Three of us picked the apple with caramelized puff pastry dessert. My husband picked the strawberry parfait. It was a fun get-together and the dinner was delicious. I originally met my friend through work and when she left about seven years ago I was so sad. But I’m so glad we have kept in contact and we still catch up. The best part is, that our husbands have become friends over time too. When we left the restaurant all the lights were on in the buildings around Darling Harbour. I love the city any time of the day but it’s even more spectacular at night. It was a great weekend and I really enjoyed having a calm Saturday and then getting to go out and do something fun on Sunday evening. I’m very excited about this week as it’s the last week of term before the spring school holidays. Yay!! Anyway, I hope you all have an amazing week and I’m looking forward to being back here on Wednesday. See ya!

Hey there, everyone and welcome to a recap of our fantastic Father’s Day weekend. A big shout out to my friends who enjoyed the long Labor Day weekend. I hope you had an amazing time with your loved ones! Friday Night Friday night was all about checking off one of those fabulous movies from my list that I recently shared in my Cozy Solo Movie Nights post. And I decided to kick it off with “Amelie”. It was a really charming, quirky and visually appealing French film. Full of vibrant colourful costumes and scenery. I enjoyed this cute and heart-warming movie about Amelie who makes it her mission to bring joy to others. It was a perfect start to my cozy solo movie nights! Saturday On Saturday morning my friend and I were texting and we both needed to go to the shops and do some Father’s Day shopping (yeah last minute, I know!) And she suggested we hit the city together. It was so fun to be spontaneous and having a friend like her who is up for instant plans is gold! I didn’t snap many photos because we were on a mission with a clear plan of what we needed and where to find it. Also, we didn’t arrive in the city until 3.30 and the shops were closing at 6. But we both found what we were looking for in a flash. Sunday Sunday was Father’s Day and the four of us went to our favourite Italian restaurant to celebrate Steve big time! And Luke’s lovely fiancee joined us back at our place later on. Making it even more of a fun gathering! We started with mouthwatering grilled octopus and prosciutto pizza. The star of the show was definitely the huge tomahawk steak served with the most scrumptious Diane sauce and potatoes cooked to perfection in olive oil, garlic and lemon. It was a feast! Building A Computer Over the last few weeks, we have been getting all sorts of different-sized boxes and packages delivered to our house. Because Sam had big plans to build his own super-powered computer. Lucky for him, Luke and his tech-savvy fiancee had already tackled the same projects themselves by building their own computers. So Sunday evening was the perfect chance for them to team up and dive into this computer-building adventure. Steve and I sat in the lounge room watching episode after episode of Blue Bloods while ‘the kids’ joyfully geeked out on assembling the ultimate computer setup. I loved hearing them have so much fun together. We capped off our fun Father’s Day weekend with a scrumptious layered sponge cake I picked up. It was full of delicious fresh cream and jam in each layer, topped with sweet strawberries. After the kids finished building the computer. We all tucked into this sweet treat and it was the perfect way to end a great day! Thanks so much for joining me today and I hope you have an amazing Tuesday! Linking up with Holly and Sarah

Hello friends and hello Monday! I hope you all had an amazing weekend and are now geared up for the new week ahead. I’m back today linking up with Holly and Sarah to recap the latest weekend events. Let’s jump in! Friday Night Movie Have you seen ‘Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody’? It had been on my list of movies to watch for a little while, so I watched it on Friday night. I had read some of the reviews which said the movie wasn’t great. But I thought it was a good movie that showcased Whitney Houston’s amazing “once in a generation” voice. Boy could she sing! I spent most of the weekend singing right along with Whitney Houston and now I feel like I should go and apologise to all my neighbours for my dud voice! Saturday Morning At The Farmers Market We caught up with some friends at the Ramsgate Farmers Market on Saturday morning. It was such a sunny morning even though the temp was around 16°C which is low for us Sydneysiders. We grabbed some coffee and snacks and found a good spot to sit which had just the right amount of sun for me because I’m always cold. And just the right amount of shade for Steve who can’t handle getting too warm. It was nice to sit around chatting and eating. The time flew by so fast and we could hardly believe that we had been sitting there for over two hours! We then went for a walk around the market and there seemed to be more stalls than usual. Probably because the weather was so beautiful. The flower stall was full of gorgeous colourful flowers which made me so excited because it’s another sign that spring is on the way! Here is my farmer’s market mini haul. I love exploring the markets and bringing home fresh colourful produce. Soccer Semifinals Saturday evening we got together at our friend’s house to watch the semi-final of the women’s world cup soccer. We sat around the TV eating and our friends spoiled us with so much delicious food. Sunday After church, I came home and tackled a few nagging tasks around the house that had been bothering me. I cleaned the washing machine filter, organised my cleaning caddy, tidied up the laundry, and made sure the remaining odds and ends of laundry were folded and put away. Despite having a cleaning routine, these little jobs were necessary and had been on my mind. They didn’t take much time, and once they were done I felt so relieved. Small victories can feel so good! My reward for all my effort was a steamy pot of apple tea and then I sat down to do a bit of blogging. Dinner with Friends In the evening we had a fun dinner outing with our friends, another lovely couple, and we enjoyed a wonderful time together. We tried a restaurant called Vecino that serves up an interesting fusion of Korean and Mexican flavours. We got a kick out of the table water being served in a tequila bottle. It was a fun touch that made it seem like we were chugging down endless glasses of tequila! Steve and I ordered the beef nachos each and I was relieved that it wasn’t spicy. The beef had a hint of sweetness to it, which I guess comes from the Korean influence. I much prefer sweetness over spicy! After dinner, we made it home in time to watch the last few minutes of the Women’s soccer final. Our cat Sushi was only interested in cuddles. And that’s it for my weekend events. Here’s to carrying those good vibes into the week ahead. Take care, everyone!